


The Music Room

by JegElskerDigJo



Category: Cinderella Phenomenon (Visual Novel)
Genre: Music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-05
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-03-16 08:33:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28579050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JegElskerDigJo/pseuds/JegElskerDigJo
Summary: Lucette and Rod are in the music room, just being the dramatic teenagers they are.
Relationships: Lucette Riella Britton/Rod Benedikt Widdensov
Kudos: 14





	The Music Room

**Author's Note:**

> Written in celebration of a friend playing through Rod's route. I was very excited.

It wasn’t as if either of them were easy to love.

Lucette could objectively observe this; the witch’s daughter and her socially inept, rags-to-riches lover weren’t the couples described in fairy tales.

But Rod was very easy to love when he’d teach her piano, or work through dance steps with her, or when he’d read quietly because Lucette needed the silence. They were opinionated, intelligent people, and despite egos and bad days, they made it work, and were able then to enjoy the pianos and dancing and books.

And it was nights like these, the reward for the bad days, it was nights like these that Lucette lived for.

It had been a long day of managing a political situation arising from arguments between pig farmers on the borders of Angielle and a neighboring country. It was boring and, more relevantly, exhausting. She was partially asleep even now, but managed to keep herself awake to enjoy the peace of the moment she was currently sharing with Rod.

She sat on the bench, facing away from the instrument as he lightly tapped keys spread across the grand piano in the music room, so that her back was to the piano while he played. Lucette hadn’t bothered to open her eyes; Rod was beside her, meaning there was likely nothing before her worth seeing.

Down to the individual fingers leaping from note to note, she felt the movement of his arms beside her and against her, for she’d already leaned to rest her head on his shoulder. From what she knew, this brushing of arms made playing piano a bit more difficult, though Lucette was frankly too tired to care at the moment.

“How does that sound?” asked Rod. His head had stopped bobbing, and the piano had stopped singing.

“Hmm?” Lucette opened her eyes to see moonlight spilling in through the window onto the instruments of the practice room, seeing everything besides the piano and Rod doused in the sleepy white light.

“I changed the key,” he explained. “How does it sound compared to the original? I think I prefer this version.”

“Oh,” said Lucette. “Yeah. Mhmm. Agreed.”

“You weren’t listening, huh?”

“Nope,” said the princess, lifting her head off of his shoulder and rubbing her eyes. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Rod pulled the protective wooden cover down over the keys, but tapped a rhythm on it as he spoke. “Don’t you think it’s time you went to bed? You’ve had a long day.”

Lucette turned her head to look at him; his equally-tired eyes shone with concern and caught all of the weak light from their surroundings that could be caught. She spent a moment observing them before looking back at the rest of the music room. “I don’t want it to be over.”

“We’ll be here again tomorrow.”

“But,” said Lucette, “so much happens between tonight and tomorrow night. As soon as I go to sleep, I’ve committed to ending my time with you until I complete a million draining tasks, and--”

Both teenagers froze as a guard passed outside the music room door, and Lucette did not let go of the breath she was holding until the guard passed.

“I know what you mean,” said Rod. “I like the late nights too. But if we don’t go to sleep, we’ll be miserable tomorrow.”

“Perhaps.” Lucette didn’t finish her thought. _Perhaps if we go to sleep, we’ll eventually wake up on a day where we don’t have to hide everything_.

The boy next to her seemed to read her mind nonetheless, and after letting out a yawn, he nodded. “I’ll be just as happy to spend time with you tomorrow night. More so, probably. Things will get easier with time.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course.”

She doubted Rod meant it. There was no way he’d know what would become of them, and yet, he knew what to say. He’d gotten so good at that recently.

His fingers kept tapping, keeping a grave tempo with a ritardando creeping in, like a heartbeat slowly failing in its march, dying. This might have been intentional, some kind of grand commentary on pacing and steadiness, but he was probably just tired, too.

Time always crept up on them.

“It’s too late for me to walk you back to your room,” said Rod. “I think it’s better if we’re not seen together at this hour.”

“You can leave first,” Lucette said.

“To stagger the times we’re possibly seen?”

The princess nodded. “Correct.”

The boy stood from the seat and, giving only a polite cheek kiss and a muttered “g’night,” was gone.

Lucette was now alone on the piano bench, facing the silent crowd of instruments and music books. They seemed to be judging her; they were, after all, the only ones who knew of this relationship spare the trees and select confidants. The flutes looked at her funny, and the harp was strung a few keys above normal if its glare was anything to go off on.

“Is this right? Am I supposed to have to wait like this?” She felt silly talking to the instruments, though she _had_ done the same with Delora when she thought the witch was merely a doll. “I’d be alright . . . with staying like this forever, I suppose, but would he?”

The instruments did not talk back to her.

“When’s he going to give up? Isn’t he tired of hiding, too?” finished Lucette.

It was the piano behind her that gave her an answer. A note had been left behind on the keys’ covering, one he must have left when he got up to return to his bedroom. Then, he must also have written it before they’d seen one another tonight. He’d prepared, he was always prepared.

Lucette picked up the stationary, which was missing it’s envelope, not that it mattered. Nobody else needed to know who its contents were for besides Lucette and Rod. There was no addressee, no signature, and the message was brief, in Rod’s typical snappish style.

_I’ll wait._


End file.
